Discover the Vatican’s Bramante staircase where the incoming and outgoing of visitors never meet.
During our Vatican Museums Extended Private Tour and Vatican Express Private Tour, houses some of the world’s greatest art treasures. Visitors walking through its corridors, can see some of the world’s most important masterpieces of Renaissance art. Yet not many are aware of an amazing piece of architecture that also lives within these walls. This is Bramante’s staircase. It consists of two intertwining staircases. This structure allows those who walk upwards to never meet those going downwards.
THE ORIGINAL STAIRCASE
The original staircase was commissioned by Pope Julius II in 1505. Donato Bramante, one of the worlds’ most impressive and revolutionary architects, designed the staircase to allow people and animals to ascend and descend easily. The stair was inspired by the double helix passageway at the well of San Patrizio in Orvieto designed by Antonio da Sangallo the Younger.
THE MODERN STAIRCASE
Giuseppe Momo designed the modern spiral stairs of the Vatican Museum in 1932. Antonio Maraini and Ferdinando Marinelli’s Artistic Foundry realized the staircase. This staircase, like the original, is a double helix, having two staircases allowing people to ascend without meeting people descending. The main purpose of this design is to allow uninterrupted traffic in each direction.
Double helix staircase designed by Bramante.
Both the Vatican Museums Extended Private Tour and Vatican Express Private Tour include the entrance into the Vatican Museums, and therefore, provide access to the Scala Del Bramante. In addition, we also offer a Rome and Vatican Day Private Tour which will take you around Rome and to the Vatican Museum, assuring that you walk down this architectural marvel.
Come and discover the Vatican’s Bramante staircase where the incoming and outgoing of visitors never meet!!
